


girls in love

by dumbbitchdisease



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Crystals my baby, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, University AU, cis girl au, just gals in luv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23777593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbbitchdisease/pseuds/dumbbitchdisease
Summary: Gigi has never been one for words, they’re always been a little anticlimactic, they’ve never done her justice, leaving the taste of them stale at her lips. Crystal Elizabeth Methyd doesn’t help this problem, because she, more than anyone else, makes Gigi’s words get caught somewhere between her brain and her throat, so Gigi gets used to thinking things rather than saying them, it’s safer that way.ORThe five times Gigi thinks I Love You and the one time she says it.
Relationships: Crystal Methyd/ Gigi Goode - Relationship, Gigi Goode/ Crystal Methyd - Relationship, Jan/ Jackie Cox
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	girls in love

1.  
Gigi has never been one for words, they’re always been a little anticlimactic, they’ve never done her justice, leaving the taste of them stale at her lips. Crystal Elizabeth Methyd doesn’t help this problem, because she, more than anyone else, makes Gigi’s words get caught somewhere between her brain and her throat, so Gigi gets used to thinking things rather than saying them, it’s safer that way.  
The first time Gigi thought ‘I love you’ was 3 months after they’d met at university, when Crystal knocked on her door quietly one Sunday evening.  
‘Hey’ she smiled sweetly as a very tired (and slightly irritable) Gigi opened the door. When she saw Gigi’s stressed demeanour remain, her assurance wavered. ‘Sorry, I know you’re super busy for your deadline, but I thought you could use some help.’ She had said this with such humility that Gigi had almost been confused. She was used to doing things herself, not asking for help and others not offering it.  
When Gigi didn’t say anything immediately, Crystal seemed to grow nervous, ‘I also have adderall?’  
Gigi had laughed breathlessly, moving out the way of her doorframe and tucking loose brown curls behind her ears. She had been trying all day to finish up a garment for her fashion design course, a button blazer-dress which was so painstakingly detailed and precise that she had almost ripped out hair over it. After last night’s drunken shenanigans with Crystal, Jaida and Jan, she had woken up with a pounding headache and the black dread of her Monday 9am deadline, still having to sew on at least 10,000 buttons. It was laborious work, and Gigi as a rule didn’t accept help, but watching Crystal delicately seat herself next to the half-finished piece, and look up at her with the nicest smile she thinks she’s ever seen, her hangover and stress-induced irritation melt away.  
‘That’s so, nice of you,’ she stammered, not sure how Crystal knew she would need help (considering she made an active effort to keep her anxieties hidden) and realising the small sacrifice she had made.  
‘But aren’t you and Jackie and people meant to be having a movie night?’ She also knew Crystal had a 9am English lecture, but she would rather keep her knowledge of the redhead’s timetable to herself.  
Crystal shrugged, playing with an orange button, ‘you mentioned yesterday you hadn’t finished it, and they’re watching ‘Call Me By Your Name’ and I didn’t feel like sobbing tonight.’  
Gigi didn’t have time to thank her properly before Crystal started examining some small white pills in a baggie and waving it in her direction with a mischievous smile. ‘Okay well do you wanna finish this god-forsaken thing or not?’  
They worked well together, Crystal knew when to be quiet, and Gigi was impressed with how quickly she could thread a needle, and how small her stitches were. At some point in the early hours of the morning Gigi noticed Crystal’s head being propped up sideways by the back of her dorm bed, her curls slightly covering one of her eyes, lightly asleep. She was embarrassed for how long she looked on the image, it filling with some warm glow of pride, knowing she could've sewn on at least 5 buttons before she could wrench her eyes away.  
‘I love you’ she thought once, suddenly, the words feeling large and all-consuming in her head, surprising her, because Gigi didn’t make a habit of loving people, anyone.  
But at 7:30 Crystal gently shook her awake (she didn’t remember falling asleep), still looking beautiful despite the 30 minutes rest and whispered that the piece was finished. ‘It’s over’ she laughed quietly, ‘hell’s over.’  
Gigi got full marks on the piece, and found herself thinking the words again, smiling to herself as if they had been sewn onto her front lobe. I love you, I love you.

2.  
The second time she remembered thinking it could easily be mistaken for a meaningless drunken-teenage type thing, that holds little meaning, and occupies little memory space come the next dreadful morning.  
Gigi had made the mistake of not eating dinner, being too rushed to finish her makeup and missing out on the pasta-bake that Heidi insisted everyone eat to ‘line their stomachs’ before clubbing, because in her words, if people threw up she would ‘quite literally tell the bouncers to escort them out.’  
Gigi, hadn’t followed this advice, and found her head in the toilet bowl shortly after arriving. She wasn’t a messy person, and hated anyone to see her look less than perfect, however, just as the spins kicked in she felt strangely like crying and passing out all together, someone knocked quietly on the stall door.  
‘Hello?’ She recognised the voice easily, but half-drunkenly wanted to pretend no-one’s in.  
‘Gigi?’ Crystal asks again, clearly worried. ‘Can I come in?’  
She had obliged out of sheer fear that Crystal would tell Heidi, and that Heidi really would stick to her warning earlier, so she creaked open the cramped toilet door to usher the other girl in. She knew Crystal could probably see her underwear as her stupid dress was riding up, and that her lipstick was smudged in a very unattractive way, but she found herself too drunk to care.  
Crystal was amazing though, she made jokes and helped Gigi successfully throw up, at least relieving her frame of a small fraction of the alcohol consumed hurriedly on the bus on the way to the club.  
‘I’m sosorry you ‘ave to seeme like this’ she slurred miserably at one point, but Crystal only laughed.  
‘Don’t worry! I’m normally the one who ends up like this!’ she comforted, ‘so like, stop stealing my thing.’  
Crystal had tied her hair up in an effective fashion, and was rubbing small circles onto her back, ‘I think it’s very unfair you still look so gorgeous, miss Goode.’  
Gigi’s eyes were closed at this point, but she remembered thinking the words again, willing herself not to say them, willing herself not to look more pathetic. I love you.  
Once the spinning stopped, Crystal and her walked and stumbled drunkenly through the streets, hand in hand, merrily oblivious to whatever night out they had missed, instead only happy to be with each other, half believing that was all that mattered

3.  
Crystal always went home for the summer holidays, it was one of the things she most looked forward to in the academic year, because home was as much in Missouri, with her family, as it was with the girls she had met since starting college. But the week before school finished, Gigi crept by Crystal’s doorframe, surprised to see her panic-packing most her clothes into her suitcase hurriedly, with an unreadable expression and eyes that suggested that tears may have stained her face minutes before.  
‘My dad’s sick’ she had said, not looking directly at Gigi, ‘he’s worse, I need to go home right now.’  
Crystal’s dad had been ill since she was 16, declining gradually but fear slightly underlining every family gathering or phone call, and eating away at Crystal more rapidly through the 2 Years she’d spent away from home.  
As soon as she left Gigi wanted to go with her, to be with her, because from the way she made it sound, and from her infrequent and sparse text messages, her father’s life was fading, and it frustrated Gigi that she didn’t just jump on the next train and miss her classes for the last week.  
‘It’s not your place’ she scolded herself sternly whenever the impulse seized her, ‘be respectful.’  
But after weeks and weeks apart, Crystal finally asked her to come for the funeral, no other information, just her home address. Gigi had debated many times asking to come round sooner, before it was too late, but instead met the text with a burst of adrenaline, spending way too much money on a train-ticket to get to Crystal’s childhood home as fast as humanly possible.  
‘Thanks for coming’ a frail looking girl mumbled when they hugged, Gigi feeling the bones and muscle in her back, weight having dropped off her in the six weeks they had been apart, the atmosphere of dying clearly taking its physical toll.  
Through the funeral Gigi didn’t see Crystal cry once, she held her head up and her chin tilted, like a girl challenging the world, determined not to let it see her cracking. She had gripped Gigi’s hand instead, squeezing it as though she would fall to her death if she let go. Gigi didn’t mind, the slight bruises the next day made her somehow feel as though a minute portion of Crystal’s pain had been transferred to her, that’s all she wanted to be able to do. It was hard seeing someone so sweet and happy be reduced to their suffering, it felt cruel.  
The summer nights spent together after blended into one delicate sense of quiet, the trembling silence that follows love and death. Gigi took it upon herself to bring Crystal tea, and soup, to lie with her at night and wipe away her tears, stroking her hair softly and thinking the words over and over again, I love you I love you I love you, hoping with all her might that if she willed it enough, the universe would ease Crystal’s pain and never let her be hurt again. 

4.  
The following new years, Gigi didn’t only think the words, but felt them like a knife in her stomach. It was the countdown to midnight, and she was surrounded by all her friends, Jan, Jackie, Widow, Heidi, all of them roaring drunk and blindly ecstatic to be welcoming a new year with each other. Gigi saw Crystal be pulled away into the crowds at the bar, Leo’s hands round her waist possessively, kissing passionately as 3..2..1 was shrieked throughout the room.  
After her dad’s death, Crystal had died her hair jet black one evening when they were both too wine-drunk to convince her otherwise, but the result had been so positive that she had continued to re-dye it all winter. With her red lipstick and black mini dress, Gigi was almost surprised her boyfriend didn’t confront her about her staring, she felt as though everyone must have realised what a massive crush she had. She had come to the unhappy realisation that that was why her body and mind had smothered her with feelings of love towards her friend. Gigi didn’t love people, not romantically, and hoping that she only loved Crystal because that’s how friends loved each other only got her 3 and a bit years into friendship before she had to face up to her sexuality and bleak situation. Crystal, wasn’t bi, or pan, (or maybe she was, she never brought it up) and even if she was she probably wouldn’t think of her best friend that way, AND she was now dating Leo. So there were 3 odds stacked against her, the universe wasn’t acting in her favour.  
It made it worse that Gigi didn’t like Leo, she had tried to, half-heartedly, but he had given off bad vibes from the start. After the mourning Crystal felt all summer, she whirled into a relationship quicker than you could take your clothes off, which left Gigi feeling unsettled and almost concerned. He seemed like every other boy Crystal had liked, and she didn’t trust those boys, she wouldn’t make an exception for Leo (even if his hair was better). Crystal’s track records of guys weren’t too optimistic, and Gigi cursed Leo under her breath almost once a day whenever she thought of him possibly breaking her heart.  
She had told herself that she was just protective over Crystal, and she was, but it was also jealousy, envy, which Gigi felt wildly unattractive of herself, it made her feel guilty, it made her nervous around Crystal, it made her slam a 10 dollar bill down on the counter and order 3 tequila shots very dramatically as she saw them kiss again.  
Jaida had laughed loudly when she watched Gigi do this, not meanly, but drunkenly giggling at her inappropriately sinister demeanour.  
‘Chille… what is wrong with you?’ she cackled kindly, after Gigi downed the burning liquid in quick succession. I love you, shot, I love you, shot, I love you, shot.  
’It’s new year’s eve!’ Jaida continued, ‘And no-one takes shots like that when they’re happy.’

5.  
After the last term of University ended, Leo and Crystal broke up for ‘mutual reasons’.  
‘It’s not going anywhere.’ Crystal had philosophised calmly, ‘we never planned to stay together after college ended.’  
And this filled Gigi with too much joy, because they had already started planning where they wanted to move into, going home to family not seeming like an option for either of them, but this meant, for the first time, properly, that Gigi could selfishly have Crystal all to herself, to have her so close, to make their own sort of makeshift home together.  
Of course their first few months together felt like a pressure cooker for Gigi’s conscience, with every day making her heart grow both heavy and full with love for her best friend, now her flatmate. Gigi found herself coming out too soon for her liking, praying to a god she didn’t believe in that she wouldn’t look as small as she felt.  
‘Crys?’ she asked timidly one evening before they were due to meet Jan and Jackie, on a double date that ‘wasn’t officially’ a double-date, ‘you know I’m bi right?’  
Crystal hadn’t stopped perfecting her eyeliner in Gigi’s mirror but looked as though she stopped breathing, not making eye contact. ‘Yeah’ she had replied casually, not so much to admit she had suspicions, but to encourage her to continue, ‘me too.’  
‘Really?’ Gigi blurted, slightly shocked.  
‘Well, pansexual if you wanna get technical, but,’ Crystal waved the eyeliner wand as if to dismiss it. Gigi didn’t know what to say, because of course she had half expected it, but now didn’t know how to fulfil her confession.  
‘What, like, made you realise?’ Crystal continued before she could.  
Now it was Gigi’s turn to stop breathing, to hitch her breath and accept that this was probably the only (sober) time she would admit anything, maybe her only shot.  
‘Probably around the time we met’ she said quietly, pretending to adjust necklaces in her full length mirror they were both looking into, eyes meeting through the glass, Gigi swallowing the pride that had wedged itself in her throat.  
Crystal had stopped what she was doing, and was now looking down at her hands.  
‘When- when did you realise?’ she stammered on, half expecting her world to turn black if the conversation went south.  
Crystal regained some composure, and now applied lipstick smoothly as she looked between her friend and her own reflection in the mirror, ‘probably around then too.’  
Gigi felt her face and neck flush, and to her surprise she watched Crystal’s face turn a few shades duskier under her blush too, before they both collapsed into laughter, knowing all at once what they had just said, and what it meant.  
‘You’re telling me,’ Gigi gasped, ‘all that time-?’  
Crystal only affirmed her suspicions by covering her mouth with her hand, turning to face her while still laughing.  
After they calmed, they seemed to search each other’s faces for all the answers to the questions they had clearly both harboured for such time. Neither of them spoke, clearly scared to break the delicate equilibrium of intimacy they had created. Crystal’s smile reached her eyes, and she was looking at her as if she could see her through clear eyes for the first time. Gigi knew she was smiling like an idiot, beaming. She felt the words race round her mind, her blood, in her lungs and every fibre of her being. She opened her mouth, half expecting ‘I love you’ to fill the air, before recollecting herself, turning her body towards the mirror once more to instead touch up her makeup, smirking.  
‘Jan and Jackie are going to have a field day.’

+1.  
Gigi had had a pretty bad day, not too bad, but probably only a 4/10. Her fashion internship was paid, but time (and soul) consuming, with most days starting early and ending late, little time in-between.  
Of course, what little hours there were, were spent with Crystal in their shockingly small (and shockingly expensive), but very sunny LA apartment, now cramped with house plants, the odd passing cat, Gigi’s sewing materials and Crystal’s essential oils.  
It was there own little Garden of Eden, from 2-6pm the place basked in so much golden light that it hardly felt real. Heaven on earth, Gigi was fond of saying, and it did feel like that, because although their jobs weren’t well paid, or the best in the world, they could know for sure that after every passing day, they could come home to the assurance of their favourite company, and probably something nice that Crystal baked.  
Whatever romantic tension had smothered between them for 3 years flourished now, and their relationship didn’t feel the way relationships had felt in the past, it felt like a deep breath out, a sense of satisfaction and awe all in one. They never made it official, or maybe they did that day before they met Jan and Jackie, either way no one was surprised if Gigi was found sitting on Crystal’s lap in public, or when Gig’s arms snuck their way around Crystal’s waist to pull her close. For them, (and probably every one else) it felt like home, more like home than their little flat, or even their childhood houses, something new and yet so nostalgic all at once.  
Since Gigi came out, the words that had toyed with her for the past years had asserted a burning dominance in her thoughts, and a good portion of her day was spent imagining the ideal situation to say them: she had placed so much importance on the three words throughout her life that now the opportunity arose, she felt it needed to be perfect.  
Gigi had, so far today, missed her train, worn her least favourite bra by accident, had period cramps, and cried in the bathroom at work after her boss seemed ungrateful for all the work she was putting in. This was when she had texted Crystal a “ :( “, a sign that Gigi would use whenever she was down that Crystal could recognise easily- even through texts Gigi found words overwhelming, and a sad face was more than enough expression, Crystal knew this.  
But she had found a dusty painkiller at the bottom of her bag on the train home, and her stomach pain and headache subsided with a jasmine tea, so her mood was brightening before she reached their block.  
When she opened the door and slung her bag down onto their beanbags, stretching up and shaking off her work jacket, ready to complain about her relatively annoying day, she saw Crystal in the kitchen smiling at her and felt everything soften and calm.  
‘Hey!’ she gushed, taking off oven gloves, ‘I made banana bread! I thought it might cheer you up.’  
This in itself wasn’t an unusual action, Crystal liked baking to show people she cared, to help them feel better, which it often did (her work in a bakery paying off big time at home), but something about the way she looked so fresh faced and pretty, hair falling out of the low ponytail and her jumper marked with flour, or the smell of warm cooking throughout their apartment, or how the watery December sunlight made the place look so lovely, but Gigi found the words falling out her mouth before she could even think about it.  
‘I love you.’  
The look on Crystal’s face made her realise how badly she had wanted to say that, for how long she had wanted to say that, how scared she had been of saying it. The words hadn’t shattered glass the way she had always expected them too, they didn’t feel like a death wish or a goodbye, and for a moment Gigi was almost glad she had waited so long, glad that they felt so special.  
Crystal had beamed and hugged her tight, tears escaping her eyes as they so easily did.  
It made her realise how many times she could’ve said it in the past, how many times she wants to say it in the future.

**Author's Note:**

> I love this pairing with all my heart :(  
> let me know what yall think <3


End file.
